transcendence in the guise of very delicious cake

If you have leftover buttermilk, as I did, you should make this cake. This cake is a little lighter than a traditional pound cake, with a bit of tang from the buttermilk. It still has the tight and tender crumb of a pound cake, as well as the caramelized-butter imbued crust on the cake’s exterior.  The crust will stay crispy on the first day, then soften after it’s wrapped, so if you like it crispy, plan on eating it as close to baking it as possible.  Unlike a traditional pound cake, this one does not taste eggy straight out of the oven (the traditional pound cake I like is best eaten at least a day after baking it).  Probably has to do with the leavening depending on both good cake structure and artificial leavening (both baking soda and baking powder).  

I’ve been burned by buttermilk cakes before – they taste too much like any cake you’ve ever had, in an uninspiring way.  I wanted to make sure that if I went to the trouble of making a cake just to use up buttermilk, that it would taste good, so I added some good bedfellows to the butter and sugar: a vanilla bean and some rum.  You should really only be using dark rum for baking; I use Bacardi 8-year reserve.

Combining the flavors of butter, vanilla, and rum is hardly a new idea; but this cake far surpassed my expectations.  So many recipes call for vanilla extract, and I choose not to keep my pantry stocked with it.  Vanilla extract obscures the wonderful flavors of butter and sugar in cookies and cakes, in my opinion – the floral takes the butter-sugar combination into cloying territory.  As such, I usually eschew it completely or replace it with rum, which has a more caramel-ish flavor that emphasizes the butter and sugar.  Vanilla beans – specifically, the seeds scraped from them – are another matter, however.  I like to use vanilla beans with dairy: panna cottas, ice cream, puddings, etc.  There’s something about the clean flavor of dairy that pairs well with the vanilla.  Anyway, I think vanilla beans can sometimes work in baked goods as well, provided that there’s something to balance it out – hence the rum.  A healthy (but don’t worry, not eye-popping) measure of salt also balances the whole thing out.

What you end up with is a cake that can be eaten plain with great joy, as I have been doing for the past few days (yes, I did give some of it away…but only some). You could add whipped cream or a fruit compote if you wanted, but the cake is quite satisfying without either.

vanilla bean buttermilk pound cake

3c flour
1t salt
1t baking powder
1t baking soda
1c butter, softened
1 3/4c sugar
1c buttermilk
4 eggs
1 vanilla bean
1T dark rum

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Butter and flour a 12-cup bundt pan (alternatively, you could make these as mini bundt cakes or loaves, etc – just make sure you only fill anything 2/3 full at most, since the cake rises a fair amount).

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until lightened and fluffy, about 5 minutes (do not beat for less than this amount of time – it helps develop the structure of the cake). Mix in the eggs one by one, beating well after each one. Scrape down the bowl in between eggs. Split the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds; add the seeds along with the rum to the bowl and beat until mixed well.

3. Beat in the salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Sift a cup of flour into the bowl and mix well. Add half of the buttermilk and mix well. Scrape down the bowl and repeat. Sift in the third cup of flour and mix well.

4. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake 50 minutes to an hour (possibly a little longer than that), until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs stuck to it. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then unmold onto a plate. Let cool completely.

[serves 10-12; stays good for at least a week, wrapped tightly or stored in an airtight container.]